Praxis

NINE

“My lord?” said Cadet Seisho. “I’m looking at a transmission, and Recruit Levoisier says something about the captain that I’m not sure about…”

Martinez glanced at his sleeve display, which showed the cadet’s smooth-cheeked face. “Does she say that she’s going to kill the captain, maim him, assault him, or disobey the captain’s orders?”

Seisho blinked. “No, my lord. It’s…more personal than that.”

Morepersonal? Martinez wondered. Then he decided it was better not to know. “If it’s not assault, death, disobedience, or sabotage, it’s not treason,” he said. “Pass it.”

Seisho nodded. “Very good, my lord.”

“Anything else?”

“No, my lord.”

“Then good-bye.”

The sleeve returned to its normal mourning pallor. Martinez turned back to his own work-or rather, Koslowski’s. The senior lieutenant was off with the team practicing, and Martinez was standing Koslowski’s watch as well as his own.

Pulling together with the team involved more than just standing watches. Martinez had been put on a hellish number of boards and other collateral duty assignments. He was the Library and Entertainment Officer, the Military Constable Officer, and the Cryptography Security Officer-at least cryptography was more in his line of specialty. He was on the Wardroom Advisory Board and the Enlisted Mess Advisory Board. He audited the accounts for the officers’ and general mess, which called for accounting skills he didn’t possess. He was on the Hull Board and the Weapons Safety Board, as well as the Cadet Examination Board, the Enlisted Examining Board, and the Cryptography Board.

He was on the Relief Board, intended to help people in distress, which meant that enlisted personnel were constantly hounding him with their hard-luck stories in hopes of getting money.

And lastly, he was also officer in charge of censoring the ship’s mail, a job he was happy to shovel onto Seisho and a couple other cadets.

In fact the cadets and some of the more reliable warrant officers were getting as much of his work as he could safely unload, though he kept anything involving equipment or money in his own hands.

At the moment he was puzzling over wardroom funds. The three lieutenants were required to contribute sums to their mess, intended for the most part to be spent on liquor and delicacies, though some money vanished as under-the-table payoffs to maintain the style of the wardroom steward-in civilian life a professional chef-and large sums seemed to be employed for the purposes of gambling on football games. SinceCorona had a successful season, and most of the bets were winners, this didn’t appear to be a problem.

What disturbed Martinez most was inventory. The wardroom mess had paid for a good many items that were no longer in stock. It was possible that enlisted personnel were somehow pilfering, though it seemed unlikely, given that wardroom supplies were kept separately under lock and key. It was likewise possible that the wardroom steward, who had a key, was skimming. But since most of the items seemed to have vanished sinceCorona had been docked at Magaria’s ring station, Martinez suspected that the officers themselves were taking the stuff away, perhaps to give as presents to woman friends in Magaria’s ring station or skyhook towns.

But in that case, why didn’t the officers simply sign for the items? They’d paid for them, after all.

Martinez had verified with his own eyes that the items had existed. He had signed for them. And now they were gone.

He drummed his fingers on the edge of the display. This might be another good moment to schedule a talk with Alikhan.

His left cuff button chirped again, and Martinez, assuming another query from Seisho, glared as he told the display to answer the call.

“Martinez. What is it?”

The face that appeared on his sleeve answered his glare with an apologetic look. “This is Dietrich at the airlock, my lord. The military constables are here with three of our liberty people.”

Dietrich was one of the two guards on duty at the port to the ring station. “Are they drunk?” Martinez asked.

Dietrich’s eyes cut away, outside the frame of the camera, then back to Martinez. “Not at the moment, my lord.”

Martinez restrained the impulse to sigh. “I’ll be there in a minute and sign for them.”

Such were the joys of the designated Military Constabulary officer.

He put the wardroom accounts back in their sealed password file and rose from his chair.Corona was moored nose-on to the ring station, which meant the forward airlock was “up” from Command, where Martinez was standing watch. In dock, a continuous belt elevator-essentially a mobile stepladder-was rigged in a central tunnel, and Martinez stepped onto this for the ride toCorona’s forward airlock.

Rigger/First Dietrich was waiting just inside the airlock, his sidearm, stun baton, and handcuffs on his wide scarlet waist belt, and the red elastic Military Constabulary band on his arm. “Zhou, Ahmet, and Knadjian drunk and disorderly. Busted up a bar in the course of getting themselves thrashed by a gang from theStorm Fury. ”

Zhou, Ahmet, and Knadjian. Martinez hadn’t been on the ship long, but he already knew better than to feel sympathy for these three.

He went up the long umbilical to the station and found the three handcuffed recruits with their torn clothing, blackened eyes, and cut lips. Knadjian seemed to have had a fistful of hair torn from his scalp. AfterStorm Fury ‘s recruits finished with them, the Naxid constables who had broken up the fight had probably got in a few licks as well. The miscreants had spent the night in the local lockup, and they smelled about as good as they looked.

The Fleet’s enlisted personnel were known with varying degrees of affection as hardshells, holejumpers, or-from the hard gees they pulled-crouchbacks, pulpies, or pancakes. Whatever they were called, they tended to fall into certain well-defined areas on the military spectrum. Zhou, Ahmet, and Knadjian were in the part of the spectrum that involved brawls, floating dice games, drunkenness, the plunder of military supplies, and intrigues with women of low character. If their roles hadn’t been so well-defined and traditional, Martinez would have been more annoyed at the three than he was. Instead he was aloof and amused.

Martinez read the charges given him by the constable/ first, who stood braced as far back as a Naxid could rear. He signed the charge sheet, presented in electronic form on the constable’s overlarge datapad, and then the other document accepting custody of the prisoners, and as he did so, he sensed the Naxids twitching at the presence of something behind him. He turned.

Squadron Commander Kulukraf, Fanaghee’s flag captain, was marching along the ring with a pack of twenty or so of his officers. Martinez figured that the Naxid MCs were twitching as they tried to restrain the impulse to grovel in the face of someone so senior.

Martinez sent electronic copies of the documents to his station onCorona, then handed the datapad back. “You can take off their handcuffs, constable,” he said.

“Very good, my lord.”

The crouchbacks, released from restraint, rubbed their wrists and eyed the MCs sidelong, as if tempted by the idea of clouting them now that their fists were free. Martinez decided to cut this dangerous thought off with some ideas of his own.

“You have twenty minutes to shower, clean up, and present yourselves to Rigger Chaves for fatigues. The captain will hear your wretched excuses and award punishment in the morning. Get moving.”

The recruits moved. Martinez smiled, and considered which toilets needed cleaning and which brassware most needed polishing.All, he decided.

He turned back to the head constable. “Thank you, constable. You may-”

He noticed that the constable was braced at the salute facing into the ring, and the other constables with him. Martinez whipped around and braced.

Squadron Commander Kulukraf had moved closer and was pointing atCorona’s hatch with one dark-scaled hand. The Naxid officers looked from Kulukraf toCorona, then to their sleeve displays and back to Kulukraf again. Red patterns on their chests flashed complex patterns at one another, the chameleon-weave jackets transmitting the color shifts of the beaded scales beneath. None of them spoke.

Kulukraf ignored Martinez and the others braced at the docking tube, then made his way onward, fast-moving feet beating at the rubberized surface of the ring station’s main thoroughfare. Martinez watched him go, then relaxed.

“Thank you, constable,” he repeated. “You may go.”

“Very good, my lord.” The constables braced briefly, turned, and thrashed deck after Kulukraf.

Curious, Martinez looked after Kulukraf. The Naxid squadcom and his officers had stopped at the next docking tube on the station, that of the light cruiserPerigee, and were going through the same routine, pausing and staring and making notes.

“The squadcom was here yesterday with a different bunch,” Dietrich volunteered.

“Was he?” Martinez looked at him. “Do you know what he’s up to?”

“No idea, Lord Lieutenant. They just flashed at each other, like today.”

Martinez wondered if there was some kind of big surprise inspection scheduled. But only a total swine of a fleetcom would schedule an inspection two days before the Festival of Sport.

Right, he thought. And Fanaghee wasn’t exactly known for dripping sweet compassion over her subordinates, was she?

Martinez decided he’d better have a quiet word with the warrant officers who ran each of the ship’s departments. And, while he was at it, make sure his own communications rigs, both the primary and auxiliary, were immaculate, and his subordinates at their most presentable.

“May I speak with you privately?”

Lord Richard Li was the only person at the reception besides Sula who was wearing dress whites, and Sula only wore her uniform because she didn’t have anything elegant or expensive enough for this company. Lord Richard, she presumed, had some other reason.

“Privately?” Sula looked at him in surprise. “Yes, of course.”

It was Terza Chen, Lord Richard’s fiancee, who had invited her to this function at the ornate Chen Palace, but Terza had glided off in her elegant way, and left Sula with Lord Richard.

He took Sula’s arm and led her to a library off the front hall, dark wood carved with a pattern of holly, and ancient leather-bound books sealed behind glass, their delicate contents preserved by a mixture of rare gases. The sight made Sula want to lunge for the cabinets, pop the seals, and indulge in an orgy of reading.

On the desk was a small fountain, water trickling over small stones, that gave the air a slight scent of brine. Lord Richard gazed at the fountain for a moment, then turned to face Sula.

“Lord Richard?”

“I heard about theMidnight Runner verdict,” he said. A Fleet Court of Inquiry had just proclaimed Blitsharts’s death an accident, the result of a faulty water intake coupling.

“Unfortunately it’s only thefirst Midnight Runner verdict,” Sula said. “There’s going to be a lawsuit before the insurance company will part with any money. They’re going to say that Blitsharts damaged the coupling intentionally. So I’ll be stuck here giving depositions for years, unless I can get ship duty.”

A smile crossed Lord Richard’s chiseled features. “Well, as to that,” he said, “I’ve just returned from the Commandery. That’s why I’m in uniform. The announcement won’t be made for a few days, but I’ve been informed that I’ll have command of theDauntless when it comes out of refit. We’ll be joining the Second Cruiser Division, Home Fleet.”

“Congratulations, my lord.”Dauntless was a new heavy cruiser finishing its first refit, with everything that hadn’t worked properly on its first tour repaired, replaced, or redesigned. It was a perfect command for this stage of Lord Richard’s career, and spoke well of Fleet Commander Jarlath’s confidence in him.

“I know you’ll do well,” Sula said.

“Thank you.” Lord Richard inclined his head as he looked at Sula. Behind him the little fountain chimed.

“You know,” he said, “that I get to promote two lieutenants intoDauntless when I get command of her. In view of your family’s kindness to mine over many years, I wish to offer you one of those places.”

Sula’s heart gave a surprised little skip. A captain’s promotions were usuallyquid pro quo arrangements within or between families-“I’ll promote your youngster, and you’ll see my cousin gets the supply contract for the satellite relays on Sandama.” But Sula didn’t have anything to offer in exchange. This was pure kindness on Lord Richard’s part.

Sula found herself flushing with the effort to compose her thanks. Composing thanks wasn’t one of the things she did well. “Thank you, Lord Richard,” she managed. “I–I appreciate your-your confidence.”

He smiled with his perfect white teeth. Sula observed little crinkles around his eyes when he smiled. “We’ll consider it done, then,” Lord Richard said.

“Ah…my lord.” She felt herself flush. “You know that I’ve been cramming for my exams.”

“Yes. Well, now that won’t be necessary. You can enjoy yourself.” Lord Richard began to step toward the exit across the deep pile of the Tupa carpeting.

“I was going for a first, my lord,” Sula said. Lord Richard hesitated in mid-stride.

“Really?” he said.

“Ah…yes.” Her cheeks must be pouring out nova heat, she thought.

“Do you think you have a chance?”

There, Sula reflected, was the key question. The cadet who achieved a first-the highest score of all lieutenants’ exams given throughout the empire during a year-was almost certain to acquire a name in the service, and very possibly some patrons to go with it. She wouldn’t be dependent entirely on Lord Richard for promotion: with a first, many more doors would open to her.

“I’ve been working the practice exams and doing very well,” Sula said. “Though of course a first is, ah…well, it’s unpredictable.”

“Yes.” He knit his brows. “Well, the exams are in a mere ten days or so, correct?”

“Yes, my lord.”

He gave a modest shrug. “My offer will remain open, then. I won’t need a lieutenant in the next ten days, and if I get someone who was first in the Year 12,481, thenDauntless will only gain by the prestige.”

“I-thank you, my lord.” Gratitude still had her tripping over her tongue.

Lord Richard took her arm again and steered her for the door. “Good luck with all that, Caro-Caroline. I was never very good at exams-that’s why I was happy to take my uncle Otis’s offer of a lieutenancy.”

Sula paused in surprised contemplation at the thought of a Lord Richard who wasn’t good at something, then dismissed the thought as modesty on the captain’s part.

She and Lord Richard rejoined the reception, Lord and Lady Chen and their twenty-two guests. Terza floated toward them, looked at Sula and said, “Is it decided?”

“Lord Richard has been very kind,” Sula said.

“I’m so pleased,” Terza said, and clasped her hand.

Suddenly Sula knew that the offer of promotion had been Lady Terza’s idea.

“He’ll be able to set you on your career,” Lady Terza said.

“Well, turns out it’s a little more complicated than that,” Lord Richard said, “but Lady Sula will be set on her career one way or another, and very soon.”

Terza hesitated, then decided to smile. “Well,” she said, “that’s very good.”

Sula’s nerves gave a warning tingle as Lady Vipsania Martinez walked into sight on the arm of a exquisitely dressed man with a receding hairline. Lady’sVipsania’s eyes widened slightly as her eyes met Sula’s, then she strode toward Sula with impressive dignity, the man following in her wake.

“Lady Sula,” she said, “I’m sure you remember Sempronia’s fiance, Lord PJ Ngeni.”

Sula didn’t remember Lord PJ at all, but she said, “Of course. Is Sempronia here?”

Melancholy touched PJ’s long face. “She’s over there.” He nodded toward a corner of the room. “With those officers.”

Sula turned to see Sempronia speaking to a pair of men in civilian suits. “They’re officers?” she asked. She didn’t recognize them.

“They’realways officers,” PJ said, his melancholy growing.

“Go and fetch her, my dear,” Vipsania advised. “I’m sure she’d like to speak to Lady Sula.”

“That’s a lovely gown,” Sula said. It was too. Some elderly seamstress had probably grown blind sewing on the thousands of beads.

“Thank you.” A look of modest concern knit Vipsania’s brows. “We’ve been sorry you haven’t been able to attend our little get-togethers.”

“I left town,” Sula said. “I was cramming for my exams.”

“Ah.” She nodded in apparent satisfaction. “It hadn’t anything to do with my brother, then.”

Sula’s heart gave a jolt. “Lord Gareth?”

“He thought he might have offended you in some way. He can be a dreadful idiot sometimes.”

“Dreadful idiot?” queried Sempronia as she arrived with PJ. “We’re talking about Gareth, I presume?”

Sula decided to set the record straight. Or straighter, anyway. “He hasn’t offended,” Sula said flatly. “And he’s quite the opposite of an idiot.”

Sempronia narrowed her hazel eyes. “I hate him,” she said. “I refuse to hear a word said on his behalf.” She smiled as she said it, but those narrowed eyes weren’t smiling.

Lord Richard seemed both amused and a little discomfitted to find himself in the midst of this family drama. “What do you have against my brother officer?” he said finally.

Sempronia gave PJ a flicker of a glance. “That’s between me and Gareth,” she said.

“Sometimes I feel as if I’m marrying into a pack of tigers,” PJ said. “I’m going to have to watch myself night and day.”

Sempronia patted his arm. “Retain that thought, my dear,” she said, “and we’ll get along fine.”

PJ adjusted the line of a lapel, then gave his collar a tweak, as if suddenly finding himself a little warm.

“Lady Sula,” Terza said in her soft voice, “Richard tells me that you’re interested in porcelain. Would you like to see some of our collection?”

“I’d love it,” Sula said, happy for Terza’s tactful shift of subject. “And I wonder,” she ventured, “if I might glance at some of the books as well.”

Terza was mildly surprised. “Oh. Those. Certainly. Why not?”

“Do you have any books,” Sula asked, “that come from old Terra?”

“Yes. But they’re in languages that no one reads anymore.”

Sula gave a contented smile. “I’ll be very happy just to look at the pictures,” she said.

The case of the missing wardroom supplies was solved when Martinez went into the wardroom that evening for a cup of coffee and found Lieutenant Captain Tarafah rummaging through the steel-lined food locker. Tarafah had just returned with the team after a day’s practice, and he was placing a couple of smoked cheeses in the hamper carried by his orderly. Martinez observed that the hamper already contained three bottles of wine and two bottles of excellent brandy.

“My lord?” Martinez asked. “May I help you?”

Tarafah looked over his shoulder at Martinez, then nodded. “You may, Lord Lieutenant Martinez.” He reached into the locker and withdrew two bottles of aged cashment. “Do you prefer the pickled or the kind soaked in vermouth?”

“The pickled, my lord.” Martinez hated the stuff and would be glad to see the last of it.

The pickled cashment went into the hamper, followed by some canned butter biscuits, purple-black caviar from Cendis, and a wedge of blue cheese. “That should do it,” Tarafah said with satisfaction, then closed the heavy doors and locked them with his captain’s key.

The captain’s key opened the wardroom store and spirit locker, Martinez noted. Interesting.

The smoky odor of the cheeses floated up from the hamper, which sat on the narrow cherrywood table built to serveCorona’s three lieutenants and one or two of their guests. Martinez called up the inventory, and jotted the captain’s acquisitions onto the wardroom screen.

“My lord?” he said. “Would you sign for the stores?”

“I can’t sign. I’m not a member of the wardroom mess.”

Which was perfectly true. Martinez reflected that the captain certainly had the facts at his fingertips.

Time, he thought, for the query discreet.

“Are the captain’s stores running low, my lord?”

“No.” Offhand, as he tucked his key away into his tunic. “I’m contributing as well.”

“Contributing, Lord Elcap?”

Tarafah looked at him with impatience. “To our series of feasts for theSteadfast ‘s officers. They’re providing the officials and referees for the game, and it’s necessary to keep on their good side.”

“Ah. I see.”

“The chief referee is being very sensible about the offside rule. We need to keep him sweet.” Tarafah shouldered his way past Martinez and into the corridor that led to his own cabin. “Koslowski, Garcia, and I won’t be back till late. You’re on watch tonight, right?”

“Ah, no, my lord.” But Tarafah was out of earshot, followed by his orderly, before Martinez could explain that he’d just got off his double watch, and that the watch tonight would be kept byCorona’s master weaponer, who would be drinking himself into unconsciousness in Command while Cadet Vonderheydte performed all necessary watch-keeping tasks from an auxiliary station he’d set up forward, near the umbilical.

But Tarafah wasn’t interested in these arrangements, anyway.

Martinez watched the broad-shouldered back of the captain recede, then returned to the wardroom and signed out all missing stores as a “contribution to captain’s personal charity.” Then he signed out a can of caviar-the last-a tin of macaroons, another of crackers, a bottle of smoked red peppers, a duck preserved in its own fat, a brace of cheeses, a couple bottles of wine, and a bottle of brandy, from which he made a splendid cold meal, the remainder of which he stowed in his own cabin.

If he was going to be paying for someone else’s feast, the least he could do was have one of his own.

The exam proctor was a Daimong, and scented the room with the faint putrescence of her perpetually dying, perpetually renewed flesh. Strips of dry, light gray skin, weightless as the empty husks of insects, hung from the Daimong’s cuffs and long, long chin, and her round, deepset black eyes gazed at the assembled cadets with the fixed Daimong combination of melancholy and alarm.

“Electronic devices must now be turned off,” she said in her chiming voice. “Any electronic devices will be detected and the user marked down as a cheat.”

It would have been hard to smuggle electronic devices into the examination room in any case. The cadets-all in this room were Terran-wore their black examination robes, silk with viridian stripes for Peers, synthetics without markings for commoners. They had been made to change into these just moments ago, and their clothing was being held for them till the end of the day. The rest of the costume consisted of felt slippers and a soft, floppy round hat, the Peers’ version of which had a green pompon.

Sula supposed she might have smuggled some electronics in her underwear, but how she would read them past the densely woven black silk was beyond her imagination.

The Daimong checked the telltales on her electronic scanners. Apparently the result was satisfactory, because the next command was, “Activate your desks.”

Sula did so. The exams existed only in electronic form, and had been loaded into the desks only moments before by the proctor herself. Though the computers in the desks could be used to help solve problems, there was no information in their memories that could give the cadets any help beyond doing the numbers.

The first exam was mathematics-a snap, Sula reckoned. Then astrophysics, with an emphasis on wormhole dynamics, followed by theoretical and practical navigation, which was math and astrophysics combined. All things she prided herself as being good at.

The next day’s exams included history, military law, and engineering, all subjects in which she felt confidence. The third, final day featured tactical problems and the only exam for which Sula felt trepidation, “The Praxis: Theory, History, and Practice.” As the old joke went, it was the only exam where too many wrong answers could earn you the death penalty. Even though the Praxis was supposed to be eternal and unvarying, in practice the ground of interpretation tended to shift uneasily over time, and Sula had saved studying Praxis theory till last in hopes that her answers would reflect the current official line.

“You may toggle on the first question,” the Daimong said. “You have two hours and twenty-six minutes to complete the series.”

Sula toggled, and the first question appeared:

Under what circumstances does the identity

give the following:

The answer was obvious to her: whenx =x1,x2,x3, etc. andR4 (x) vanishes.

Then she read the question again to make sure there wasn’t something hidden in it.

Are they all going to be thiseasy? she wondered.

During the next afternoon watch in Command, Martinez made certain one of the displays showed the view from the security camera set outside the airlock. If the high command had a surprise inspection scheduled for his watch, he wanted to see it coming.

He had done his best to prepare. He’d told the first lieutenant, Koslowski, of his suspicions, and Alikhan had alerted the senior warrant and petty officers. As a result,Corona’s crew-at least those who weren’t involved in football-had joined Zhou, Ahmet, and Knadjian in furiously applying scrub brushes, polish, or lemon wax to every surface in sight.

Even the missiles in the tubes had been hand-buffed, and any scrapes from the automatic loaders to their special lawn-green paint had been repaired.

And now, Martinez saw, a party of Naxids was on its way, their scurrying, pounding feet driving them at their usual rocketing pace on the broad rubberized passage along the outside of the ring station. The party came to a lurching stop at the airlock of theSteadfast, the cruiser docked offCorona’s spinward flank. Through the display, Martinez could see their chameleon-weave jackets flashing as they looked atSteadfast ‘s airlock and at their sleeve displays.

He couldn’t imagine what they were doing. They certainly weren’t inspecting anything.

Martinez reached for the joystick that controlled the security camera and zoomed toward the Naxid party.

Kulukraf wasn’t in charge of this group, he saw: instead there was a senior captain, a half-dozen lieutenants, and-strangely-twice that number of warrant officers. They were going through the same routine Martinez had seen yesterday-pointing, conferring, flashing. Whatever they were up to, it required senior specialists. He was about to zoom in closer in order to distinguish the specialty patches on the warrant officers’ uniforms when the group moved, their scrabbling feet throwing their long bodies out of the camera frame.

Martinez panned the camera after them and found them halted about fifteen paces in front ofCorona’s airlock. Their chameleon-weave jackets were already flashing red patterns, and frustration gnawed at Martinez at his inability to read what the Naxids were saying.

Then he remembered that an imperfect Fleet translation program existed for the Naxid pattern language, and that it was probably installed onCorona’s computers. He triggered the Record button, figuring he’d try to read the conversation later, and zoomed in closely enough so he could see the sleeve badges on the group of warrant officers who hovered respectfully behind their seniors.

He saw weaponer patches. Engineers. And Military Constabulary, though without the usual red belts and armbands they wore on duty.

Why those three? Martinez supposed that weaponers and engineers might assist with inspections of weapons bays and engine rooms, but he’d never known them to be a part of any such inspection. And in any case, why were constables in the mix?

The Naxids swept on to thePerigee in the downspin berth and went through the same routine. Martinez kept the camera on them, kept recording the red patterned flashes. And then he wondered,What elseare the Naxids doing?

He could access most of the military station’s security cameras from his own station, and he began throwing them up on other displays.

Other Naxid patrols were moving along the ring, demonstrating the same sort of behavior they’d shown alongCorona’s stretch of dockyard. The Terran light squadron had its own set of visitors, and the heavy division crewed by Daimong.

There was no unusual activity near the berths occupied by the two Naxid divisions. The only dockyards visited by the Naxids were those occupied by the three non-Naxid divisions, those labeled “Mutineers” during the recent exercises.

Weaponers, he thought. Engineers. And the constabulary.

If you were to take a ship by boarding, he thought, the first thing you’d want to secure would be the missiles with their lethal antimatter warheads, and you’d need weaponers for that. Engineers would be required to secure the engines, which used dangerous antimatter as fuel and whose blazing torch could itself be used as a weapon. Officers would be needed in Command and Auxiliary Command. And armed military cops would make the whole job all that much easier.

A warning bell began to chime in Martinez’s thoughts. He zoomed the security cameras in on the Naxid parties and began to record the feed.

Then he started to dig through menus for the program that would translate the Naxid flash patterns.

He discovered that the bead patterns didn’t translate well. The patterns had evolved in order to help packs of Naxids chase down prey on the dry veldt of their home continent, and they tended to be idiomatic and strongly dependent on context. There were, for instance, about twenty-five ways to flashyes, depending on the situation and who was being addressed, and the patterns could mean anything from a simple affirmative to “this unworthy one is staggered by the percipience of Your Excellency’s reasoning.”

There was a rigid pattern of symbols, with unambiguous meanings, that were to be used in military situations where absolute clarity was required, but the Naxids weren’t using these. They seemed to be having the equivalent of an informal, slangy conversation, which Martinez thought suspicious since there were both officers and enlisted in the group. The Naxids were instinctively submissive to pack leaders, who in turn behaved with a highly formalized arrogance to underlings: he couldn’t imagine the Naxid superiors using this kind of informal language to their subordinates.

The only reason Martinez could think of for the idiomatic quality of the flash-dialogue was that the Naxids were striving to make their silent conversation as incomprehensible as possible to outsiders.

Nevertheless, some of it translated. Repeated more than once was a pattern that meant either “distant coordinates,” or “dusty ground,” or “target”-Martinez was betting on “target.” Other patterns were less ambiguous: “move swiftly,” “make secure,” and “swarm,”which the program explained was a hunting tactic designed to bring down a large prey animal. There were a number of patterns along the lines of “Your lordship shall be obeyed without question,” and “this unworthy one marvels at the dimensions of your”-something that was either “hindquarters,” or “gemel tree,” neither of which seemed suitable to the occasion.

There were other references, to “cold ocean” and “divan chamber,” phrases that were sufficiently idiomatic that the translation program declined to attempt to assign them meaning. The program declined even to guess at the rest.

Martinez followed the Naxid parties with the security cameras until their mission was completed. The enlisted returned to their individual ships, but the officers went toMajesty of the Praxis, Fleet Commander Fanaghee’s flagship, presumably to report.

Martinez thought for a long, somber moment as he stared at the multiple displays, then saved all the recordings and the translations into his personal file. He wiped the screens, thought for another moment, and triggered his sleeve display.

“Contact Alikhan,” he said.

Alikhan answered the call within a few seconds. “My lord.”

“Meet me in Auxiliary Command at once.”

Alikhan betrayed no hint of surprise at this unusual order. “Very good, my lord.”

Martinez rose from his seat and glanced around Command. Cadet Vonderheydte was at the position that monitored ship’s systems, bent over a display and probably censoring mail. Signaler/Second Blanchard, in Martinez’s own division, daydreamed over the communications board. Otherwise Command was empty.

“Vonderheydte,” Martinez said.

The small, yellow-haired cadet shook himself and straightened at his station. “Lord Lieutenant.”

“The watch is yours till I return.”

“The watch is mine, my lord.”

Martinez pushed his displays up until they clicked into place and stepped out of the locked command cage. He made his way to the exit and then hesitated-Vonderheydte had kept watches before, but usually he or Koslowski had backed him up with an experienced warrant officer.

“Vonderheydte,” Martinez said.

“My lord?”

“Contact me in Auxiliary Command in case of anything unusual or important. Particularly if anyone requests permission to come aboard.”

The cadet blinked in surprise. “Very good, my lord.”

Martinez went down the central belt elevator to Auxiliary Command, the armored battle station aft intended for use if Command was destroyed by an enemy or in the hands of mutineers. He paused outside the hatch, then stepped to one side to check the six long, low rooms referred to officially as “biological recreation chambers.” None of the crew were having a romp at present, which was not surprising, considering that the crew remaining onCorona were employed in polishing everything to a golden gleam, something guaranteed to make Martinez less than beloved among the pulpies if they ever discovered that it was his idea.

He waited for Alikhan’s arrival, then opened Auxiliary Command with his lieutenant’s key. The armored door rolled shut behind them as the lights automatically came on.

Auxiliary Command was smaller than Command, the stations more cramped and the gimbaled chairs placed closer together. Nevertheless, the metal cages gleamed, and the scent of polish wafted on the breeze: the place had been carefully sleekened and burnished just that morning.

“I’d like your opinion, Alikhan,” Martinez said as he squeezed between two of the cages to sit in one of the couches at the communications station. “Sit on my right here, watch some video, and tell me what you think.”

Alikhan eased himself into the couch and lowered the displays until they locked in front of him. Martinez opened his private files and showed Alikhan the Naxid parties marching along the rows of ships, the officers, weaponers, engineers, and constables. He showed the translations the program had made, but offered no comment on them.

“What are your conclusions?” Martinez asked.

Alikhan stared at the displays, the deep lines of his face set in a frown. “I don’t like to speculate on such things, my lord,” he said.

“Talk, Alikhan,” Martinez said. “I really need you to help me.”

Alikhan’s mouth worked beneath his spreading mustachios. Then he sighed and gave a slow nod. “They’re going to take the ship, my lord.” His voice was filled with a tremulous, exalted despair, terror and awe all mingled together. “They’re going to take all the Terran and Daimong ships. Probably tomorrow, when most of the crews will be on Magaria with their teams.”

Relief trickled through Martinez’s veins. He wasn’t alone in this madness, he had an ally. “But why?” he asked. “Is it a mutiny? Or is Fanaghee acting tostop a mutiny?”

Alikhan shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“The Terran and Daimong divisions were labeled ‘Mutineers’ during the exercises. And the exercises were aimed at holding a wormhole gate against attackers. Are they expecting a counterattack from the Home Fleet after they take the Second Fleet?”

Alikhan turned to Martinez. “There are Naxid squadrons in the Home Fleet too, my lord.”

Martinez felt cold fingers caress his spine. This was a factor he hadn’t considered. “Here the Naxids are two-fifths of our strength,” he said, and hoped his tone was optimistic. “In the Home Fleet they’re a smaller percentage.”

Alikhan’s expression was careful to avoid utter hopelessness. “That’s true, my lord.”

Martinez turned toward the displays, looked at the images of Naxids marching between docking ports. “I’ll have to tell the captain.”

Alikhan’s expression did not change. “The captain may not be…receptive,” he ventured.

“I’ll speak to Koslowski first, if I get the chance.”

“And if the lord premiere is also distracted?”

Martinez felt a sudden, angry urge to leap from the acceleration couch and pace around the room. For him, planning and motion were best performed simultaneously. But the room was too crowded with the close-packed acceleration cages, so he settled for savagely wiping the screen of Naxids.

“I’m trying to think of other officers I know on this station,” he said. “Salzman on theJudge Di. Aragon and Ming on theDeclaration. Mukerji the Younger on theSteadfast. ” He banged a fist on his armrest in frustration. “That’s all, damn it,” he said, more to himself than to Alikhan. “I did a cipher course with Aidepone on theBombardment of Utgu but I don’t know him that well. And I don’t know any of the captains at all. And worse than that-”

Alikhan’s calm voice cut off the flow of words. “How do you plan to communicate with these officers, my lord? The Naxids may be intercepting communications.”

Despair clawed at Martinez’s heart as he stared hopelessly across the small armored room. He couldn’t even use coded communications: all the Second Fleet had the same codes in common, and Fanaghee or her minions would be able to read anything he tried to send.

He sighed, then straightened on the couch and put his hands on the control panel in front of him as if he were going to takeCorona out of dock. On his right sleeve glittered the soccer ball worn by the Home Fleet champions. “Right,” he said. “So how do we saveour ship?”

“You’ll speak to the officers. And I’ll speak to others.”

Martinez looked at him. “Speak to who?”

“Maheshwari. If we have to run, I wouldn’t want to take the ship out of dock without him minding the engines.”

“Good. And…?”

Alikhan looked uncertain. “I suppose I should choose only from those likely to be on the ship tomorrow, during the sporting exercises?”

Martinez nodded. “For the moment, let’s say yes.”

Alikhan’s voice grew firm. “In that case, no one. Maheshwari’s the only one with sufficient, ah, gravity to appreciate the situation.”

Martinez’s fingers tapped the control panel. “I’m sending you a copy of the recordings and translations. Show them to Maheshwari.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Martinez blanked the screen, unlocked the displays, and swung them up and out of the way. A strong sense of relief swept through him: he was accomplishing something, working against the threat he knew existed.

He bounded to his feet like a man escaping prison. And then he remembered that his next task was to speak to the captain, and again his heart sank.

Lieutenant Captain Tarafah looked up from his ocoba-bean salad. “Ah. Lieutenant Martinez. I’d been wanting to speak with you.”

Irrational hope blazed in Martinez’s heart. Tarafah and the rest of the team had just returned from their day’s practice, and the elcap, Lieutenants Koslowski and Garcia, and the trainer, Weaponer/First Mancini, were settling down to a meal at the captain’s table. They were all still in their sweats, withCorona’s blazing badge on their breasts, and smelled of exercise and the outdoors. The captain’s table was scattered with bottles and cold dishes as well as papers and diagrams of plays.

And now Tarafah actually wanted to speak to him. Martinez had worried about being resented for intruding on the captain’s time, but it seemed he wasn’t entirely out of the captain’s thoughts.

“Yes, Lord Elcap?” he answered.

Tarafah looked at him with cool eyes. “When you joined at Zanshaa you offered to have a player as one of your servants,” he said. “I’d like to take advantage of your offer, if I may.”

Martinez was surprised. He had long ago assigned his spare-servant scheme to the realm of unsuccessful ploys.

“Of course, Lord Elcap,” he said.

“Good. Our only weakness is defense, and Conyngham on theJudge Jeffreys has agreed to trade us one of his backs. He’ll be your orderly until, umm, we can work him in elsewhere.”

Till he can be promoted to Specialist/First in some poor fool’s division,Martinez thought.Let’s hope it isn’t mine.

But he agreed, of course, and as heartily as he could manage. “When will he come aboard?”

“In the next few days, so we can have him in place when the season starts.”

“Very good, my lord.”

The captain’s cook brought in the main dish, a steaming casserole fragrant with allspice and onions, and placed it before the captain. “Ragout of beef, Lord Elcap,” he said, and then his eyes turned uncertainly to Martinez. “Shall I set Lieutenant Martinez a place, my lord?”

Tarafah favored Martinez with a brilliant white smile. “Certainly. Why not?”

“Thank you, Lord Elcap.”

Martinez sat at the end of the polished mahogany table while the captain’s steward provided him a place setting and poured him a glass of dark ale from the pitcher in the center of the table. The others were in a exuberant mood: the day’s practice must have gone well. Martinez tried not to fidget with his silverware.

Tarafah’s shaved head bent over his plate for a moment as he sampled the ragout, and then he looked up at Martinez, his face glowing with enthusiasm. “Lord Gareth,” he said, “I’m pleased to say that I’ve reviewed every recording ofBeijing ‘s games last season-and now I know their weakness! Three times in the last season their left half and their left back were drawn out of position in exactly the same way-a goal each time! No one’s noticed it till now.”

“Excellent, my lord,” Martinez encouraged. “Very perspicacious.”

“So for us, it’s Sorensen to Villa to Yamana to Sorensen to Digby-and goal!” Tarafah brandished his fork in triumph. “We were drilling it all afternoon.”

“Superb, Lord Elcap! Congratulations!” Martinez raised his glass. “To our coach!”

Tarafah beamed while the others toasted him. Martinez took a breath. Certainly there would never be a better moment.

“Apropos tactics,” he began. “I’ve noticed the Naxid squadrons are up to something odd. May I show you?”

“Show us?” Tarafah bent over his plate again.

“May I use the display here?” Without waiting for permission, Martinez reached over the pink head of the plump, bald Mancini and touched the control of the wall screen. He activated his own sleeve display and slaved the wall screen to it.

“For the last three days,” Martinez said, “Naxid officers have been making an extraordinary tour of the non-Naxid berthing areas. For the first two days, Squadron Commander Kulukraf brought parties of officers along the berthing bays, and today the officers brought noncoms with them. These are recordings I made this afternoon…”

He went through the evidence piece by piece, just as he had with Alikhan. The others ate in silence as he spoke, Mancini and Garcia occasionally craning around to view the display behind them. At the end, with the screen frozen on a Naxid officer flashing the symbol for “target,” Martinez turned to the captain.

“I wonder, Lord Elcap,” he said, “what you make of it?”

Tarafah raised his napkin to dab gravy off his goatee.“Should I make anything of it?”

Garcia spoke hesitantly. “They’re obviously rehearsing something.”

“And it’s a maneuver that requires weaponers, engineers, and the constabulary,” Martinez said.

Koslowski, the premiere, frowned at him. He was a long-legged, broad-handed man, as befit his position of goalkeeper. “This morning,” he said, “you told me that you thought that all this was the rehearsal for a surprise inspection-”

He barely got out the words before Tarafah thumped a hand down on the table and made the plates jump. “Just before the game? When we’re all distracted? That Fanaghee’s a vicious little monster, isn’t she?” He looked at Koslowski. “I’ll have to inspect the ship myself tomorrow morning before breakfast, right when I was hoping to have a last talk with the team.”

“The lord premiere and I have been preparing for the inspection,” Martinez said. “I’ve had the people hard at work all day.”

Tarafah seemed little mollified. “That’s good. But I still can’t believe that Fanaghee would take advantage of the Festival of Sport in this way. It just isn’t right!”

“My lord,” Martinez said. “I no longer believe that the Naxids are planning a surprise inspection.”

Tarafah blinked at him. “What?” he said. “What are you bothering us with, then?”

Martinez tried to settle his leaping wits. “You don’t need weaponers or engineers or constables to pull an inspection, Lord Elcap,” he said. “You need weaponers to control the weapons bays. Engineers to control the engines. And constables to control the crew-andthe officers.”

Tarafah’s brows knit as he tried to puzzle it out. “Yes. That’s true. But what are you saying?”

Martinez took a deep breath. “I think the Naxids are going to board the ship and take her. Takeall the ships they don’t have already.”

Tarafah gave a puzzled frown. “Why would Fanaghee do that? She doesn’t need to capture our ships. She’salready in command of the Second Fleet.”

To prevent his hands from trembling with eagerness and frustration, Martinez clamped them on the butter-smooth edge of the table and squeezed.

“She could be acting to suppress a mutiny she believes is about to break out,” Martinez said. “Or it could be a rising of some kind.”

The trainer, Mancini, seemed even more puzzled than his captain. “On theFestival of Sport? ” he demanded in a high, peevish voice. “A rising on theFestival of Sport? ”

“What better time?” Martinez asked. “Most of the crew, and all the senior officers, will be off the ship watching the games.”

“The Naxids areparticipating in the festival,” Koslowski said. “They’re having a huge tournament of lighumane, and-” He hesitated. “Some of the other sports they do.”

“On theFestival of Sport? ” Mancini repeated. “Spoil the football and disappoint the fans? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Tarafah said. “Why should Fanaghee lead a rising? She’s at the top of her profession-she’s afleet commander, for all’s sake.”

“I don’t know,” Martinez said. He hesitated-he knew this might sound dangerously absurd, but it was the only argument he had left. “Maybe it’s not just Fanaghee,” he said. “Maybeall the Naxids are rising.”

The others stared at him. Then Koslowski lowered his eyes and shook his head, his lips quirked in a tight smile. “Allthe Naxids?” he murmured. “That’s too ridiculous.”

“The Naxids are the most orthodox species under the Praxis,” Tarafah said. “There’s never been a single rebellion in Naxid history.”

“They’re pack animals,” Koslowski said. “They always submit to authority.”

“They’dnever spoil the football,” Mancini proclaimed, and smacked his lips as he drank his ale.

“Then what could they possibly be doing?” Martinez asked. “I have no other explanation.”

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” Koslowski said reasonably. “Maybe Fanaghee’s decided to drill her people on boarding. Maybe it’s a familiarization tour for new arrivals. Who knows?”

Tarafah seemed happy to agree with his goalkeeper. “This speculation is useless,” he said. “I’m not going to get inside Fanaghee’s mind, or Kulukraf’s either.” He turned to Martinez. “Lord Gareth, I appreciate your…diligence. But I think you’ve let your imagination run away with you.”

“Lord Elcap,” desperately, “I-”

“Perhaps we should return to tomorrow’s game,” Tarafah said. “That’s something a little more within our sphere.”

Martinez suppressed the impulse to hurl his glass at his captain’s face.

“To our winning play!” Mancini said, and raised his glass. “Sorensen to Villa to Yamana to Sorensen to Digby-andgoal! ”

Martinez drank with the others, as despairing, unvoiced shrieks echoed one after another in his skull.

He didn’t manage to eat much of his dinner. When the elcap proposed another review of the videos ofBeijing ‘s game, Martinez excused himself and made his way to his cabin. Once there, he sent messages to the other officers he knew on station, asking if they’d care to meet him in one of the bars on the station. Salzman didn’t reply, Ming sent his regrets, Aragon said that he was participating in the wushu tournament in the Festival of Sport and was making an early night of it. Aidepone was likewise preparing for tomorrow’s game of fatugui, and only Mukerji accepted. Viewing the transmission, with its sonic interference, Martinez knew that Mukerji was already in a bar.

Martinez joined him in the Murder Hole, a dark, nebulous, and noisy place, with ear-shattering music and dancing. Mukerji bought three rounds of drinks while Martinez showed Mukerji the Naxid maneuvers on his sleeve display and explained his theory.

Mukerji put a friendly arm around Martinez’s shoulders. “I always thought you were mad!” he said cheerfully. “Totally mad!”

“You can tell your captain!” Martinez shouted over the music. “I can give you the data! He might be able to save his ship!”

“Totally mad!” Mukerji repeated. He pointed to a couple of Fleet cadets standing by the bar. “If it’s my last night of freedom, I want some recreationals,” he said. “Who do you want-the redhead or the other?”

Martinez excused himself and made his way out onto the ring station with whisky fumes swirling through his head.

Perhaps hewas mad, he thought. No other officer credited his theory about the Naxids. Maybe they’d been right about the absurdity of his premise. It made no sense that the most obedient and orthodox species under the Praxis would suddenly turn rogue.

He admitted to himself that he didn’t like Naxids and never had. He likewise admitted that it was an irrational prejudice. Naxids had always made him uneasy, unlike the other species united beneath the Praxis. Perhaps he had let his bias run in advance of the facts.

He thought again of those parties marching up and down the ring station’s broad avenue, and at the thought, a chill certainty went through his frame.

No. Hewas right. The Naxids were going to board the ship. It was possible there was some rational explanation for it other than a rising, some reason that hadn’t occurred to him, but the boardingwould happen.

And if the boarding were to be prevented, Martinez would be the one to do it.

Martinez returned to his cabin aboardCorona and called Alikhan.

“My lord?”

“No good with the captain,” Martinez said. “Or with anyone else.”

Alikhan didn’t seem surprised. “I have spoken to the master engineer,” he said.

“And?”

“Maheshwari agrees with your lordship.” Spoken carefully, in case of eavesdroppers.

Martinez sighed. Maheshwari was something, at least.

“Very well,” Martinez said. “Let me know if-” He fell silent, defeated, then finished, “Let me know ifanything.”

“Very good, my lord.”

The orangeEnd Transmission symbol appeared on Martinez’s sleeve display, and he blanked it.

Fully aware that this was the last time he might ever do these things, he took off his clothes, hung them neatly in his tiny closet, and prepared for bed.

Plans for savingCorona eddied through his head, all fog and futility.

Sorensen to Villa to Yamana to Sorensen to Digby, he thought.

And goal.